The Groke
Back between the ages of 16 and 18 years old I lived in a bungalow with my family in one of the nicer parts of town. The neighbourhood was high up on a hill and overlooked the rest of the town in the valley below. It was a nice little house, in a nice place, but small areas of it had a strange feeling to them. The main hallway which split the bungalow in the middle always felt as though it was crowded. Even when you were alone in the house, you felt like you had some company in that hallway. I had some minor experiences with seeing shadowy figures out of the corner of my eye, but could write them off as imagination.
A similar feeling hung around the path that went from the kitchen door to the garden gate that led out into the steep-sloping street outside. Often at night it felt as though someone was standing on the outside of the gate watching me as I exited through the door and made the short walk to my room. I should mention that my bedroom was a seperate building to the rest of the bungalow, essentially being a big concrete shed at the bottom of the garden.
I would often find myself making that walk particularly quickly, making a point not to look at the gate.
Most nights I was up late, spending the wee hours online at the computer in the house. This particular night was no different.
It was at about 1:30am when I decided to call it a night. Collecting together the CD's and various other bits of junk that accumulate around me I made sure everything around the house was off, turning out the light in the creepy hallway and making sure not to look down to the mirror hung at the other end. Nothing especially unusual had gone on, nothing felt out of place as I opened the back door and stepped out into the cold night air. For some reason my eyes were drawn to the gate moreso than usual. I stared for a few seconds, seeing nothing but the small gate, the tall hedges either side of it and the orange-lit night on the other side.
I blinked out of my stupor and shut the door. It was then that I heard it.
"Sssss...."
I paused for a second, freezing on the spot and listening. The sound had been short, but very very clear. Clear enough to get my attention and make me wonder what the hell had made it. I knew it had come from the gate.
I looked up the path and stared again at the orange tinted night air. Nothing. There was nothing there. No sound but the distant mumbling of a sleeping town. I started to doubt that I'd really heard it, chalking it up to paranoia. Despite this attempt to shrug it off I couldnt quite escape the feeling I was being intently stared at. Moreso than I had gotten used to. I went to move towards my room when I was taken by surprise again.
"Ssssshhhh..."
The same strange hissing, but louder, nastier and followed by a perfectly audible exhale. I froze in my tracks again, unable to take my eyes off the gate. The sound seemed to be carrying on, but getting more hollow and breathless. Thats when I saw it.
I still cant quite adequitely explain what exactly I saw, but I'll try my best. Essentially, an amorphouse, thick black shadow oozing from behind one of the hedges, tumbling past the gate at a bizarrely slow pace and then disappearing behind the opposite hedge.
Silence.
"A horse." That was the first thing I thought. At 1:30am, in the middle of a quite neighbourhood, I was so dumbstruck by what I saw and its size that I had assumed it was a horse. An apparently hoofless, shapeless, hissing horse.
Suddenly my sense snapped back into reality and I darted for my room. Slamming the door behind me I took a few moments to try and work out just what had happened. Horse didnt seem to fit. Neither did car. Neither, infact, did anything I had ever seen. If asked now I can compare it to the character of No Face from Spirited Away, after being let into the hotel. An inky, shapeless, black mass.
What I did next confuses me to this day. I grabbed my cane (from a Halloween party years before for which Id dressed as Alex from A Clockwork Orange) and headed BACK outside, disobeying all the laws that horror movies have tried so hard to establish. I made my way out to the gate and into the street. Standing there, barefoot, at gone 1:30am holding a wooden, gold-topped cane and looking up and down the street for any evidence of...anything. But there was nothing to be found.
It was only when I returned to my room that I realised two things. 1) My stupidity at attempting to hunt whatever it was down. Surely if the slimey, cursed spirit of all that is unholy in the Carmarthenshire area was after me I probably wouldnt be able to beat it off with a stick and 2)the feeling of being watched was gone. Infact, it never came back at that place since.
Back between the ages of 16 and 18 years old I lived in a bungalow with my family in one of the nicer parts of town. The neighbourhood was high up on a hill and overlooked the rest of the town in the valley below. It was a nice little house, in a nice place, but small areas of it had a strange feeling to them. The main hallway which split the bungalow in the middle always felt as though it was crowded. Even when you were alone in the house, you felt like you had some company in that hallway. I had some minor experiences with seeing shadowy figures out of the corner of my eye, but could write them off as imagination.
A similar feeling hung around the path that went from the kitchen door to the garden gate that led out into the steep-sloping street outside. Often at night it felt as though someone was standing on the outside of the gate watching me as I exited through the door and made the short walk to my room. I should mention that my bedroom was a seperate building to the rest of the bungalow, essentially being a big concrete shed at the bottom of the garden.
I would often find myself making that walk particularly quickly, making a point not to look at the gate.
Most nights I was up late, spending the wee hours online at the computer in the house. This particular night was no different.
It was at about 1:30am when I decided to call it a night. Collecting together the CD's and various other bits of junk that accumulate around me I made sure everything around the house was off, turning out the light in the creepy hallway and making sure not to look down to the mirror hung at the other end. Nothing especially unusual had gone on, nothing felt out of place as I opened the back door and stepped out into the cold night air. For some reason my eyes were drawn to the gate moreso than usual. I stared for a few seconds, seeing nothing but the small gate, the tall hedges either side of it and the orange-lit night on the other side.
I blinked out of my stupor and shut the door. It was then that I heard it.
"Sssss...."
I paused for a second, freezing on the spot and listening. The sound had been short, but very very clear. Clear enough to get my attention and make me wonder what the hell had made it. I knew it had come from the gate.
I looked up the path and stared again at the orange tinted night air. Nothing. There was nothing there. No sound but the distant mumbling of a sleeping town. I started to doubt that I'd really heard it, chalking it up to paranoia. Despite this attempt to shrug it off I couldnt quite escape the feeling I was being intently stared at. Moreso than I had gotten used to. I went to move towards my room when I was taken by surprise again.
"Ssssshhhh..."
The same strange hissing, but louder, nastier and followed by a perfectly audible exhale. I froze in my tracks again, unable to take my eyes off the gate. The sound seemed to be carrying on, but getting more hollow and breathless. Thats when I saw it.
I still cant quite adequitely explain what exactly I saw, but I'll try my best. Essentially, an amorphouse, thick black shadow oozing from behind one of the hedges, tumbling past the gate at a bizarrely slow pace and then disappearing behind the opposite hedge.
Silence.
"A horse." That was the first thing I thought. At 1:30am, in the middle of a quite neighbourhood, I was so dumbstruck by what I saw and its size that I had assumed it was a horse. An apparently hoofless, shapeless, hissing horse.
Suddenly my sense snapped back into reality and I darted for my room. Slamming the door behind me I took a few moments to try and work out just what had happened. Horse didnt seem to fit. Neither did car. Neither, infact, did anything I had ever seen. If asked now I can compare it to the character of No Face from Spirited Away, after being let into the hotel. An inky, shapeless, black mass.
What I did next confuses me to this day. I grabbed my cane (from a Halloween party years before for which Id dressed as Alex from A Clockwork Orange) and headed BACK outside, disobeying all the laws that horror movies have tried so hard to establish. I made my way out to the gate and into the street. Standing there, barefoot, at gone 1:30am holding a wooden, gold-topped cane and looking up and down the street for any evidence of...anything. But there was nothing to be found.
It was only when I returned to my room that I realised two things. 1) My stupidity at attempting to hunt whatever it was down. Surely if the slimey, cursed spirit of all that is unholy in the Carmarthenshire area was after me I probably wouldnt be able to beat it off with a stick and 2)the feeling of being watched was gone. Infact, it never came back at that place since.